Quinoa with Ginger-Carrot Dressing and Maple Tofu Recipe

December 08 2015

Emily and Lyla Allen, the Kitchen Twins, are 12 year-old healthy food bloggers and health food entrepreneurs, who introduced their first product "Make Your Own Kale Chips" kits into the marketplace this past spring. They have been blogging since they were 9, sharing healthy recipes, food excursions and life experiences on their blog and on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Keep your eyes peeled as Emily and Lyla compete on an upcoming episode of The Food Network's Chopped Junior.

We are so excited to shareour recipe for Quinoa with Ginger-Carrot Dressing and Maple Tofu served with purple cabbage "chips".This is a super delicious fun lunch and travelsperfectly in ourBentgo containers. It can be a pain trying to find the right containers for our lunch and somehow our lids always disappear! But, our Bentgo boxes make it easy because everything snaps together. The boxes come in cool colors, and we got our favorites, purple and green. Along with the many compartments, Bentgo boxes also come with silverware.

We like to call our lunches "fun lunches" because they have a variety of flavors, textures, and colors. The Bentgo boxes go perfectly with our fun lunches because they are cool and colorful and what is waiting for us inside is delicious! Lunches should be fun, especially if you are in school or work all day.

This recipe serves about 4 people for lunch. We like to eat this with purple cabbage chips because they are delicious with our dressing or to scoop up the quinoa.

You can make these recipes the night before.

Quinoa Ingredients:

1 cup quinoa

1 1/2 cup water

Quinoa Instructions:

Rinse quinoa in cold water

Add the quinoa and 1 1/2 cups of water to a pot

Bring to a boil and turn the heat to low, cover and simmer for 12-15 minutes, or until the water is all absorbed.

Remove from heat and fluff with fork.

Maple Tofu Ingredients

1 package extra-firm tofu

1 tbsp. tamari or soy sauce

2 tbsp. maple syrup

Maple Tofu Instructions

Preheat oven to 375. Grease a cookie sheet or line with parchment.

Drain the tofu, slice it into ½” slabs, and put it between layers of paper towels. Place a cookie sheet on top of the tofu and press to help squeeze out the water. You can place something heavy on the cookie sheet as well, such as a kettle of water. Let stand for 15 minutes. Remove the tofu and cut into into 1” cubes.

In a bowl, combine tamari and maple syrup. Add tofu and toss to coat.

Place tofu on cookie sheet and put in oven. Bake, flipping occasionally, until the tofu browns, about 30-35 minutes.

Carrot-Ginger Dressing Ingredients:

6 peeled carrots, each cut in 3

2 tbsp. apple cider vinegar

4 in. ginger root grated

4 tbsp. honey

4 tsp. sesame oil

3 tsp. tamari

4 tbsp. canola oil

2 tbsp. rice vinegar

Carrot-Ginger Dressing Instructions:

First, put the ginger in your food processor and blend until very finely chopped.

Add the carrot, and blend with the ginger so very finely chopped.

Add the rest of the ingredients. Make sure that the ingredients are well mixed.

Serve on top of the quinoa and with purple cabbage "chips" (yum yum)

Purple Cabbage Chips Ingredients

1 head of purple cabbage (you won't use the whole thing)

Purple Cabbage Chips Instructions

Take off the outer leaves of the purple cabbage and cut the leaves into triangle pieces.

Enjoy your fun lunch!

Lyla and Emily, The Kitchen Twins

Comments

Allie on December 08 2015 at 10:35AM

Looks absolutely delicious and healthy and original! Great school and work lunch idea. Thank you for sharing and love your story Kitchen Twins!!